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What Is a Wildcard Person?

wildcardpeople.com

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Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#201

Post by arantius »

bookofjoe wrote: post #174

>Henry Ford had ordered a dynamo for one of his plants. The dynamo didn’t work, and not even the manufacturers could figure out why. A Ford employee told his boss that von Neumann was “the smartest man in America,” so Ford called von Neumann and asked him to come out and take a look at the dynamo. >Von Neumann came, looked at the schematics, walked around the dynamo, then took out a pencil. He marked a line on the ou…

Is this true? I've heard this story/anecdote before, more generally and not ascribed to any particular person, and to a general big company, not Ford specifically. (Just a general "know where to draw the chalk X" kind of thing.)

A search gives me only what I see as lowish reputation sources, like the fandom wiki you linked.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#202

Post by kubanczyk »

bookofjoe wrote: post #174

>Henry Ford had ordered a dynamo for one of his plants. The dynamo didn’t work, and not even the manufacturers could figure out why. A Ford employee told his boss that von Neumann was “the smartest man in America,” so Ford called von Neumann and asked him to come out and take a look at the dynamo. >Von Neumann came, looked at the schematics, walked around the dynamo, then took out a pencil. He marked a line on the ou…

Skimming that page:

> Von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he talked to the rest of us.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#203

Post by prox »

asabla wrote: post #176
prox wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting discussion. My solution has been to sell myself as a troubleshooter. So I usually see patterns and solutions that others do not and in such a case can bring something to table where people get stuck. A troubleshooter sounds very specialist while it skills are in actuality quite generalist (on the whole)

I've sold my self as a troubleshooter before, but that only got me into positions were I was maintaining old tech. Especially things others had no idea how/why it did work. I still find my self in these situations, but not as much like before since I stopped using troubleshooter. But your miles may vary :)

Yeah this comment thread is certainly enlightening in that regard. Maybe I should rethink my strategy! May I ask what you market yourself now?

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#204

Post by tylerdinner »

I honestly think 90-95% of Frontend Devs are capable of all this. Maybe not 10 years ago when spaghetti code ruled, but if you got your foot in the door as a FE Dev then you have a portfolio containing examples of almost all this 'wildcard' work.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#205

Post by BarryMilo »

braingenious wrote: post #35
BarryMilo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all relative. I'm the only person in any startup I've worked at to work on tasks spanning 5-6 knowledge domains. Most people seem to stick to one thing, maybe two. CEOs know a little about a lot of things too, but they're not actually fighting the fires most of the time, e.g. fixing that bug, writing copy, answering the SOC2 audit questions, etc.

Buddy you’re definitely not the only person that’s good at multiple things that you’ve ever worked with.

Didn't say I was? But apart from founders, people just generally seem afraid to step out of their comfort zone or something. It's possible I've just been "unlucky" though.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#206

Post by anthlax »

Does anyone else think this reads like a horoscope? As in, it’s quite likely that this applies to most people reading it to some degree. Not many jobs (at least in my SWE space) are directly linear and require a variety of tasks.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#207

Post by kubanczyk »

arantius wrote: post #201
bookofjoe wrote: post #174

>Henry Ford had ordered a dynamo for one of his plants. The dynamo didn’t work, and not even the manufacturers could figure out why. A Ford employee told his boss that von Neumann was “the smartest man in America,” so Ford called von Neumann and asked him to come out and take a look at the dynamo. >Von Neumann came, looked at the schematics, walked around the dynamo, then took out a pencil. He marked a line on the ou…

Is this true? I've heard this story/anecdote before, more generally and not ascribed to any particular person, and to a general big company, not Ford specifically. (Just a general "know where to draw the chalk X" kind of thing.) A search gives me only what I see as lowish reputation sources, like the fandom wiki you linked.

Nah, it goes back to 1908, possibly older:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/

By a long shot, it could have also originated from James McNeill Whistler, a painter.

> He did not ask 200 guineas for two days’ work; he asked it for the knowledge he had gained in the work of a lifetime.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/01/12/lifetime/

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#209

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

bookofjoe wrote: post #174

>Henry Ford had ordered a dynamo for one of his plants. The dynamo didn’t work, and not even the manufacturers could figure out why. A Ford employee told his boss that von Neumann was “the smartest man in America,” so Ford called von Neumann and asked him to come out and take a look at the dynamo. >Von Neumann came, looked at the schematics, walked around the dynamo, then took out a pencil. He marked a line on the ou…

I love von Neumann stories. This one feels made up, though. Obviously this is a variation on a theme ("how much is experience worth?") and I doubt von Neumann would basically reenact that joke. But maybe he did.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#210

Post by manholio »

willis936 wrote: post #172
manholio wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> industry legends like Jeff Dean or John Carmack Those are very bad examples that prove the gp's point. Sure, flexible and multitalented people are a huge asset IF they get their big break, if they get involved in a startup at the right time in the right industry, if they are lucky to not get crushed by abusive players etc. etc. But the chances of success are very slim, you likely won't be John Carmack. For every Ca…

Luck is always an essential ingredient in success. Can you point to any counterexamples: i.e. an industry legend who is a specialist?

The point was that you don't need any luck to become an extremely well paid and well regarded specialist, just dedication and time.

If your objective is to become a legend, then by all means avoid specialization, and be prepared to fail with a probability of 99.9%, there can only be so many legends.

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